The 1968 debates between Gore Vidal and Willam F Buckley have already been litigated in print and documented on film. What can be learned from bringing Best of Enemies to the stage? It’s said that politics makes for strange bedfellows. Best of Enemies, currently showing at the Young Vic, proves that it can make for […]
‘Best of Enemies’ stages a Buckley-Vidal rematch Read More »
An embarrassing errand. A visit to a friend’s start up. A whizkid with an incredible workplace requirements. An unexpected gift… Even though I was made redundant a year and a half ago, I’m on my way back to my old office, again. This time I’m picking up some clothes I left behind, maybe a sweater.
Dream: the boy genius and the paper satchel Read More »
Selected scenes from the capital: A smoker’s modest proposal. A mobile art installation. Cheap thrills in the sweet shop. A steam train cameo… Two men are smoking outside a supermarket in Balham. A slightly shabby man approaches them. “Can I get one of those fags?” he asks. “Sorry,” says one of the smoking men. “These
London Lucky Dip: Snapshots from Autumn-Winter Read More »
Lofi study beats are my long-standing guilty pleasure. I know it’s wrong to enjoy these chill streams. So why can’t I stop listening to them? “Would you turn your fish-tank music down a bit?” my wife demanded, without turning to look at me. Up until that point we had both been very content, working away
Fish tank beats for chill/study: my guilty pleasure Read More »
I’m an imposter at a birthday party, surrounded by strangers and celebrities, in a sprawling mansion where nothing works as it should… I am a friend of a friend – that’s why I’m in this stranger’s house – but I have no idea know exactly who that friend is. That will be the major problem
Dream: escorting Steven Spielberg to the lavatory Read More »
A West Wing character taught me how to stay on top of the housework. But did this fictional political consultant also teach me how to be unhappy? “It may not be realistic, but it feels real, and it feels right. If this isn’t what the White House is like, it’s what it should be like.”
This sailboat metaphor made me tidy, but unhappy Read More »
I rarely sleep well, but some nights are more gruelling than others. This is a record of an especially restless night: messages from the frontier of sleeplessness… It’s like this some nights: the land of sleep is a nightclub with an implacable door policy. That’s one way I visualise my insomnia: I’m queuing alone outside
Insomnia Land: Eight Restless Dispatches from the Lonely Frontier Read More »
All you need to get in great shape is a pedometer, an unforgiving inner monologue, and the wisdom of Spinal Tap. It worked for me! Obsessing over step counting is an idiotic waste of time. Sorry, I was just talking to myself. But you might as well hear it too, dear reader. At best, Fitbits
The Shadow Scorecard of the Fitbit Fanatic Read More »
I hate birthdays, especially ones that involve chasing homicidal animals at the beach… It’s my birthday and I’m at the beach. This is surprising, because I really don’t like going to the beach. What’s even more unusual is the size of the crowd that has turned out to celebrate with me. My dad, my wife
Dream: The Fox and the Hand Saw Read More »
My garden had become an embarrassment. But nature still offered up a perfect summer moment, filling the sky with clouds of dancing seeds… It was a late July day and it was blissful, even for a shade-grown hayfever sufferer like me. Patches of mellow sunlight ebbed across our neglected garden in a lazy-river procession and
The Infinite Dandelion Probability Generator Read More »
